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Police bolster hate crime resources

Ottawa Police Service said Thursday it is adding two hate crime investigators to its Security Intelligence unit “to help identify trends and community safety trends.”

While the Police Service already has officers trained in hate crime investigations, the two new additions will monitor all incoming police reports to determine if incidents have been motivated by hate, and whether to marshall a police response accordingly.

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“We know that hate motivated crimes are often under-reported,” police chief Peter Sloly said, “We re-evaluated how we accepted hate-motivated incidents from the public and we know that responding to incidents of hate will have a far-reaching impact,” he added.

The latest move follows a shift last June in how hate crimes can be reported. Previously, incidents such as racist graffiti could only be reported by the property owner. Now “anyone can report a hate motivated incident,” Sloly said.